FINALLY!!! THE BEST OF THE BEST!

Hello Everyone!!!

    Finally! Thank blogger for fixing this technical glitch. Apparently, I couldn't upload any photos for approximately 2 months and thus the long silence on the blog... :) My apologies. Anyway, I can assure you that this post is certainly worth all the wait and patience! Why? You're about to find out!

    So, as usual, my ddearest and most lovely parents would bring me on a major shelling expedition every half a year, during the months of June and December. So... the question on everyone's lips: WHERE DID I VISIT?

    *Drum roll please...* :D

    BALI!!! Yes, the Island of Gods! A wonderful and spectacular island situated right in the centre of the archipelagic nation! Of course, not only did we spend all the time soaking up the sun and shelling, but we also did visit numerous majestic and amazing landmarks/historical and cultural sites of Bali. However, I would like to start of this blog post with one of the most spectacular of them all... THE BALI SEASHELL MUSEUM!!!

 So here we are! (That refers to my dad and I) At the Bali Shell Museum. The museum charges entrance fees of 70000 rupian per person, or SGD$10. Not too bad considering the amount of amazing seashells that we were going to see!

 The museum is split into 3 levels: the first dedicated to the sale of wooden handicrafts, dried fish specimens and certain rarer seashells. The Second level is for the fossil collection. Upon arrival into this room, we were awestruck! Look at the number of trilobites in this fossil stone! And the best part is, this is just one of the many fossil specimens around there! there were others such as fishes, sharks, squids etc. WAH!!! :D

 Ancient Amonites... Have seen some of these at Feng Shui Shops in Singapore. :P

 The best is alwats saved for the last, for the third and final level showcases over 10,000 sepcies of shelled mollusc! I mean, comapred to my 300 plus species, 2-cabinet displays of shells, I almost fainted when I entered this room! I mean, IT IS SO AWESOME!!! Just the Sheller's Paradise! By the way, the shells on the left are Australian Trumpet Shells and the ones on the right Australian Baler Shells.

 Tons upon tons of scallops! Royal Cloaks, Jewel Boxes etc... :D I'm in heaven!

 And the huge array of Thorny Oysters! And all variant colours are displayed!

 My mum's favourite: The Lion's Paw... Gorgeous...

 And my favourite mollusc family: THE MUREXES!

 Spiny ones....

 Weirdly shaped ones... (btw, the ones with the long tail are the Snipe's Bill Murex)

 And a lovely pink one!

 Just asmall portion of the thousands of species here...

 Rock shells! Never would I imagine that those unassuming and dull snails would turn out to be such beauties!

 Triton family...

 CROAK! These are the Frog Shells (or toad shells if I were to name them?! :P)

 Melongena Shells!

 Haiz... this family really stirs up the nostalgia within me... :) Why? Because the first ever shell in my collection was a COMMON SPIDER CONCH or Lambis lambis! I Still have it!

 Amazing pink ROOSTER TAIL CONCHES from the other half of the world...

 CONES! LOTS OF EM!!!

 Volutes...

 Haha! Finally spotted this baby! For our Floridian viewers, see how flawless this specimen is! The ultimate JUNONIA! Really the centrepiece among the rest... :)

 And Wormies! (Haha Pam, specially uploaded this picture for you! :D)

 "Little Sea Pigs", otherwise known as COWRIES...

 COWRIES again...

 This one's a treasure! Look at it! SLIT SHELLS!! This is my first time seeing this family so I was so super excited that I had to take 3 photos just to get a perfect focus on the shells! :P

 Freak out! For these are the extraordinary FREAK SHELLS!

 MITRES and HARP SHELLS...

 CARRIER SHELLS! I can never seem to find any of these on our local shores... Wonder why...?

 BUBBLE SHELLS and PAPER NAUTILUSes... 3 out of the 6 species are represented here.

 And for the Chinese, these would probably be your favourite amongst the rest: ABALONES 鲍鱼!!!

 And don't look down on that slow, boring old garden snail that you are planning to step on... For this is what some of their relatives look like...

 TOTALLY AWESOME!!! A wonderful cornucopia of colours!!! Couldn't take my gaze off them for 5 whole minutes when I first saw this display...

Look at them!!!

 Some more!

 And MORE!

 And not only does thi museum display seashells, I also has an amazing collection of WRACKLINE WEIRDOS such as these crabs...

 The LAZARUS JEWEL BOX: The diamond within the family of Jewel Box shells...

Hope you've enjoyed each piece of eye candy presented in this blog post. Would really love to show you guys all the photos that I've taken but it is just too many! over 300! If you would like to see more, do feel free to leave a comment! So, i hope I've not let you down on this blog post. Have a great weekend and stay tuned to the next exciting blog post! :D

Down Under! Fremantle, Perth, AUSTRALIA!

Hello!

So sorry for the sudden absence of blog post recently... But today, just to make up for what I've done wrong... Here's a post on my recent trip to PERTH, AUSTRALIA!!! Yes, all the Kangaroos and Koalas!Well, it begins like this: The Track team decided that training in Singapore was too boring and thus, to break the monotony of this, we went to PERTH! It was thoroughly enjoyable! However, since it was a training/Track and Field Trip, Shelling time was cut to only 35 MINUTES...

But in any case, I still managed to taste the sea and get sand in my shoes so here it goes!

 So... the weather was not too perfect upon arrival at Fremantle. Apparently, it began to rain as we were walking to the famous Fish and Chips Shop so yea... was a little disappointed about that... This is the harbour by the way. I guess this is where Fremantle gets its daily shipping of fresh seafood!

 But... HEY HEY! The weather did not fail to surprise us!(Thats right! For the first time, one of my BEST TRACK BUDDY was with me shelling!)  So this is the sea! had to squeeze through the tiny space between the fencing... But it was sorta worth it. :P

 So here it is... Thought he skies seemed threathening, it did not rain for the rest of the day!

 Loads and loads of algae/ SEA GRASS. There were heaps of them all over the small stretch of shore so we had to slowly sift through all these just to find one. :(

 Strong currents! ~ Beware!

 And KELP (If i'm not wrong) Couldn't bring those back though...

 The lovely Fremantle... had to immediately run off after this photo or risk getting my running shoes soaked!

 and there were loads of these ALGAE BALLS. Kinda like MARIMO from Japan to me. :)

 FINALLY!!! A SHELL! had to yank this off from a piece of algae. It was a perfect, double shelled specimen (well, it was until the other half FELL THROUGH THE GAP BETWEEN THE WOODEN BOARDS AND WAS GONE FOREVER!!! DX) Similar to those locally, the BARBATUS MUSSEL (Modiolus barbatus) is one of the numerous australian counterparts that they have!

 More algae... Looks like those I ate in the Philippines! Crunchy!

 Sadly this was a live specimen so yea... had to leave it alone but on the bright side, A PERIWINKLE! These little friends have an extremely high tolerance to heat and can stay out of water for WEEKS until the super tides manage to relieve them of their agony! Amazing eh? :)

 But sadly, 35 minutes is barely enough to look thorugh all that seaweed and we had to leave...

  For FREMANTLE MARKET! And my hopes were not dashed when I saw this Seashell Shop! Time to rumble!

 Look st those HUGE Bailer Shells!

 So... We were outta luck and could only shell for this INCRASSATE CARDITA (Megacardita incrassata)... My buddy managed to find 2 of these! Double happiness!!!

And of course... after a slight negotiation with the shopkeeper, I managed to obtain this SOWERBY'S VOLUTE (Ericusa sowerbyi) for a hefty price of SGD$18... Nvm, it's once in a lifetime right? :)

So that brings me to a close for this post... Yep, I know, it isn't as glamourous as the rest but Iassure you the NEXT POST will be spectacular and worth waiting as i'm going for another MAJOR SHELLING HOLIDAY! Not going to mention where the place is but till then...

Akan Datang ;P (Here's the clue! :D)